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Thread Scarlett Solo distorting badly and sometimes blocking audio playback

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1 Scarlett Solo distorting badly and sometimes blocking audio playback
Hi,
I'm running scarlett solo with an Intel i5 PC based w/ win7 and latest drivers. I'm having issues when using the scarlett as a simple sound card for every day audio tasks, like youtube, winamp or any audio playback. Normally it works fine, but approx. once per day it just starts distorting and crackling really bad. In same cases, instead of that, the app that tries to play the sound just freezes, youtube videos won't play, winamp won't start a song, etc. When I unplug the USB cable and plug it back everything goes back to normal. Crackling goes away and audio resumes. Sometimes restarting the application that tried to play the sound helps.
What could be the issue? Sounds like unstable driver. It's not a show stopper, but it is a major inconvenience. It should work at least as good as an integrated sound card, but it doesn't.
Thanks
2
I have the same problem! Anybody knows what's the solution?

[ Post last edited on 11/05/2015 at 17:55:02 ]

3
Came to the forum to make a topic about this but it seems more people have this problem. Would love to have a solution for it :3
4
I blame the drivers. As a software engineer myself, I can't help but think they put them together overnight. They look amateur-ish, fail all the time...it's embarrassing for a reputable company to release drivers like that. And it's not like it's version 1..they've been working on them for years and they are still rubbish.
5
Hi Bancika,

Sorry to hear you're having some issues.
If anyone has ever written a driver for a series of audio interfaces such as the Scarletts, they can of course understand that such drivers are not put together overnight. We are continuously working on them in order to improve performance, as is necessary for any driver used on constantly evolving operating systems and PC's which are often built from arbitrarily chosen hardware (spec over compatibility etc).
We are not aware of any consistent issues with our driver and Windows 7, and most issues are usually due to specific problems with their setup that are able to be resolved with some troubleshooting.

Dropouts and other audio issues are sometimes caused by DPC latency, an interrupt request by another driver/hardware combo that is preventing your PC from streaming audio in real time. To check if this is indeed the issue, Could you download the DPC latency checker from this website, then send me a screen shot of the graph once opened for a minute or so while playing audio out at the same time? :

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml (Win 7)

If this is mainly happening when recording, as opposed to playback, then please run the software while running your DAW at the same time.
It may be easier for you to drop us an email via our web form in order to create an email case with us, this will let us track your issue a bit easier. You can email us via the web form here:

http://focusrite.com/answerbase/contact-0

You will not be able to attach any files initially, however you will get an automatic bounce-back to your email, which you can reply to with your DPC results.

Hope this helps.
Simon // Focusrite Technical Support

[ Post last edited on 11/10/2015 at 10:08:23 ]

6
Hi Simon,

thanks for the response. I don't think it's DPC latency issue. I originally had latency/periodical popping issues which were resolved by optimizing windows for audio. Now it works fine through the DAW, I can record and playback. DPC latency is consistently below 100uS. I was referring to usage outside the DAW, as a regular sound card for everyday tasks. Noise I occasionally get is not at all similar to the one I had when there were DPC latency issues in the DAW. It's not a periodical pop, crackle or delay. It's like I put my windows audio through a nasty fuzz box. When it happens it stays like that until I unplug the USB cable.

I doubt that it's the rest of the system to blame because that PC also has an integrated sound card that works flawlessly. I also own another interface made by other brand and never experienced anything similar.

Cheers,
Bane

[ Post last edited on 11/11/2015 at 00:09:25 ]

7
Hi Bane,

Thanks for the reply.
Your issues are quite unusual and something I can't reproduce on my Windows 7 PC, especially seeing as the ASIO side of the driver (which DAWs use) seems to be working fine for you.
Please can you let me know which version of our USB driver you're using? Is it the release version 2.5.1?
If so, you may wish to download and try the following beta driver to see if it works better for your system:

http://beta.focusrite.com/file.php?id=1154

Let me know how you get on, as mentioned, it may be easier for you to start an email case with us.
Simon // Focusrite Technical Support

[ Post last edited on 11/11/2015 at 02:26:05 ]